


What (Really) Matters Most

by KotsBlins



Category: Epic Battle Fantasy
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 05:07:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20371180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KotsBlins/pseuds/KotsBlins
Summary: Lance finally returns home to Redpine Town. Just past the horizon, the Rapture (and all it entails) awaits him and the rest of the party. With Matt’s unintentional help, Lance is prevented from losing himself in bad memories.





	What (Really) Matters Most

**Author's Note:**

> ebf5 has become one of my most favorite games quite quickly, i couldn't stop playing it. good characters, good game, good music. 10/10.
> 
> by the way, it’s a miku shirt.

Lance did not like Redpine Town. No, not one bit. As soon as he had crawled off the raft, clothing dripping briny water, he had remembered a lot of things he had hidden away in the attic of his mind.

_Why do I have to come back here? Nobody comes back to Redpine. _

Lance took off his hat and shook it, droplets going everywhere like the hat was a dog. His coat was at least twice the weight it had previously been. The few medals dangling from the breast of the coat bounced flatly against the waterlogged leather. In the overcast sky, they even looked slightly tarnished.

It was obvious that nobody else in the party liked Redpine Town either.

NoLegs had jumped onto Matt's right shoulder and had refused to get off of it, even after Matt had gotten off the raft.

Matt's plucky attitude had curled up in a fetal position, somewhere in his head, and had been replaced with a fake, loose smile and a twitching-finger tic.

Anna had frowned seeing the trees stained crimson, their falling leaves like drops of blood. Anna had swallowed nervously as she saw bullet holes embedded in nearby tree trunks. After that, Anna just stared at the ground, having judged it the safest place to look.

Natalie had tugged her jacket tighter, trying to shield herself the best she could against the suddenly chilly air. It was like a neverending November, minus the good feelings.

Redpine was in a death spiral, but nobody cared all that much, especially the inhabitants of the town itself. 

* * *

Matt had thrown some change at the nearly comatose and completely incoherent bartender and rented two rooms upstairs. Through that, he had single-handedly saved the local economy.

Lance and Matt took one room, and the girls the other. That had been the tradition ever since Lance had joined the party. Even though Natalie had gotten past her fears of Lance (for the most part) by now, the two rooms were just a lot more convenient. It would be incredibly awkward, if, for instance, Matt walked in and Natalie was changing, or if Anna was laying across the bed complaining about cramps.

Either case, Matt would run right out, and it would be funny to everyone except Matt. Even NoLegs would surpass the limitations of his voice box and laugh.

The cat came and went, choosing who he wanted to sleep near at night, which was wholly dependent on who had fed him a snack recently. For now, the Snack Feeder title rested with Anna.

Matt had a question and he wanted an answer. Actually, Matt was hungry and he wanted food, except he had misplaced his wallet in his and Lance's shared room and he couldn't find it, so he couldn't buy anything. So his question was "Where is my wallet?" and he didn't have the answer for that question yet. 

After wandering around in the bar, trying to coax conversation from the drunken patrons, Matt went back upstairs.

"Hey, do you know where-" Matt walked into the room, and frowned for a second. Where had Lance gone? Then Matt realized the water was running and saw Lance's coat hanging on the back of a chair, with his hat sitting on the nearby desk. The rest of his clothes were sitting on one of the two beds, folded. A duffel bag was present as well, the one that had all their clothing in it. It looked and smelled wet. 

The window had been opened, the chilly breeze blowing into the room and circulating the dusty air. A few bottles of assorted sodas along with two family-size bags of chips had been thrown onto the other bed, which Matt assumed was his - Lance had claimed the other bed with his clothes and all. It wouldn't make sense to move anything, especially since Lance had bought him snacks. 

The bathroom door was shut and locked, which wasn't surprising. Matt found this out after trying the doorknob, just because. 

"Whatever," muttered Matt to himself, "I'll ask him when he gets out of the shower. I really hope nobody stole my wallet."

Around fifteen minutes later, Lance cracked the door open, his hair wet and a little bit less spiky, water droplets dripping down his face. He looked out and immediately rolled his eyes.

"Hey, Matt," he called, seeing Matt sitting around playing with a book instead of reading it. "Can you get me a towel from that closet over there? I think they're in there, and I forgot to get one, sorry." Lance left the door open a crack, enough for the steam and heat to begin to seep out. "Don't want to get the floor all wet," he said as an afterthought.

"Uh, yeah," said Matt after a second, before walking over to the closet that was over there, and opening it. Yes, it was full of towels and everything else a small bed-and-breakfast that was also a bar would need. He snagged a large towel from the top of the towel pile and walked over to the bathroom door, knocking before opening the door a slice more to give Lance the towel.

"Thanks," Lance said from behind the door.

_Really, _Matt thought, _it's not about getting the floor wet at all. It's just Lance being himself. He's all private about everything. Who cares about getting water on the floor? It always dries eventually. _

Matt wouldn't have cared if Lance had walked out there without anything on. He would have just turned his head and shrugged as water puddled all over the floor. Although it would be interesting to see how some of his wounds had healed up. Like that one down Lance's side that Matt had given him during the Neon Valkryie fight. Or the one on his shoulder after a large blood bat had bitten him. 

"Hey, you there? Matt. Blondie." Lance was standing in front of Matt now, face neutral. He had come out while Matt was lost in thought, a rare occasion. The towel was slung around his hips, the red flush from the heat of the water quickly fading. Matt stared at the slew of silvery scars over his friend's chest and forearms for just a second. Just another second. And then one more. 

_He's really beat up, isn’t he? And all of this wasn't from beating up monsters and robots, either. Some of these aren't from anything we've done or dealt with. _

A cold, sharp feeling lodged itself in Matt's throat. He wanted to know what had happened to Lance for those scars to be present. He had wanted to know for a while.

But Matt said nothing about that, knowing that Lance would never answer any questions. His red eyes - like dying coals - would flicker, he would frown, and say "Does it matter?" It had already happened multiple times. 

"Huh?" said Matt intelligently, realizing he had been staring way too long and hadn't heard anything Lance had said.

"I said," Lance leaned forward with the same neutral expression, eyes uninterested and mouth slack, and then broke into a slight smile. The edges of his mouth twitched like some offensively funny joke had just been told. "Are you done looking at me?"

Now, what can our protagonist say to that? Matt awkwardly fiddled with his hair, pushing the long bits that hung in front of his face behind his ears. From his position sitting on the edge of the twin-size mattress, the rest of his hair was like a shiny golden curtain spilling onto the sheets. Eyes blue like Hope Harbor’s coastline, light and sparkly, Matt said an incredibly analytical and smart statement.

"Uh...yup."

"Alright, whatever. Got you some chips by the way, figured your black hole stomach needed something, and also because I don't know if anyone here is capable of more than throwing back shots and being traumatized." Lance walked over to the other bed, leaving Matt to sit there and think of something to say.

"Thanks," said Matt, before grabbing one of the bags (one was salt and vinegar, and the other was sour cream and onion) and ripping it open. The packaging crunched violently, and inside was the delicious goodness that was salt and vinegar potato chips.

Unzipping and digging through the duffel bag, Lance pulled out a t-shirt with a cute and colorful anime girl emblazoned on it. He made a face. "I think this is yours, Matt." Lance set it aside. He found a pair of jeans, and pulled those out.

However, with a few more minutes of digging, still in only a towel, Lance found nothing else that was really suitable. The majority of their stuff had been drenched thoroughly, even the clothing that had been in the supposedly waterproof bags. So really, his options were to walk around in clothing that stank like dead fish, walk around without a shirt entirely, or wear the anime girl shirt.

"I hope this doesn't give anyone the wrong impression," muttered Lance, who swiftly threw on the anime girl shirt. Her smile was wide, her hips were wide, and her hair was bright blue in pigtails all the way down to her ankles.

The girl was a foil of Lance - happy and bright compared to moody and what could be described as an aura of comfortable depression.

He then told Matt to not look, dropped the towel, and put on underwear and then a pair of jeans. "Okay, now you're fine," Lance said.

Matt was crunching away happily at the bag of chips, and it was at least halfway done. He had also opened a bottle of the cherry soda, and it sat on the nightstand next to his bed, completely drained. 

"Cool." said Matt, while shoving a handful of chips into his mouth. "What would happen," he said between crunches, "If I didn't not look while you put on your pants," and then Matt finally swallowed the wad of what once had been chips. He struggled a little bit getting it all the way down.

"Then I'd call you a weirdo, but still not really care," Lance responded, wondering how many more genius things Matt would say by the end of today. "We've all seen each other like that. Natalie's had to get you completely naked to heal some of your wounds, like that time one of those damn cats threw a shuriken into your thigh...by the way, how do you eat like that and not gain weight? I don't get it."

"I don't actually know," said Matt, who paused his chip consumption to answer the semi-intellectual question. "It may be genetic, or, I don't know. Maybe I have a tapeworm from eating too much weird stuff, like slimes. And that raw rabbit when I was really hungry."

"You ate raw rabbit?"

"I was really hungry, and there was nothing because I hadn't gone to the store. That was a while ago, though."

"That's nice, Matt."

"Hey, my shirt looks pretty good on you! It was way too tight on me, that's why I never really wore it. But you look nice in it." Matt said suddenly, with a grin. He absentmindedly put his hair that he had pushed behind his ears back to where it naturally fell. Then he continued eating chips.

"Thanks," Lance said with only a light touch of sarcasm.

A knock at the door, rapping three times. It had to be Natalie, because Anna would knock five times. If NoLegs wanted in, he would mew, wail, and hiss like someone was beating on him.

Matt stood up still holding the bag of chips, and walked to the door, opening it. "Hey, Natz," He waved his friend into the room with a few grandiose hand movements.

"So, are you guys good?"

Both Matt and Lance nodded.

"I think tomorrow we're gonna go over to the impact site. People have been talking about big red and black rocks floating around - they have to be more of the monoliths. So that's something to deal with."

Natalie laughed to herself when Matt emptied the crumbs of the chip bag into his mouth, and then went back for the other one. Her hair was in a messy ponytail, and she was hiding in an oversized hoodie with a college on it - in fact, the one she had ran from due to the whole teacher incident.

Then her eyes went to Lance and the girl on his shirt and the blue jeans, and she snorted loudly. "Oh Godcat, what are you wearing? Isn't that one of Matt's shirts? Did your stuff get completely soaked or what?"

"Yes," Lance said gruffly, his arms moving to hide the shirt's image as best he could. "Yes, it is all wet. I have to wear this or else I'm not wearing a shirt, and that would be worse."

"Where's Anna?" Matt piped up, having guzzled a second bottle of soda, this one a cream soda. He set it next to the other empty bottle. Maybe he could build a bottle tower after he drank them all. 

"Playing with NoLegs," Natalie answered, before starting to leave. "By the way, Lance, nice to see you two are a lot, uh, closer now. Shirt and all. Matt was pissed for a while at you, you know. So was I. We all were, really. Also, dinner is going to probably be from a vending machine. Just letting you know."

As soon as the door closed, Lance groaned, pressing his hands hard into his face. "A lot, uh, closer now," He imitated through his hands in a high-pitched squeaky voice. His eyes flashed with annoyance, but just for a second. He ran his hands through his drying hair. "Man, whatever," Lance finally said after a few moments of staring at the water-stained ceiling. 

"Do you mind sharing the chips?" Lance sat down next to Matt, making the bed creak, and put his hand in the bag without waiting for a reply. Matt watched in distress as Lance stole some of his precious snacks, but then Matt also remembered Lance had bought him all the snacks. So, to be fair and just, 20 percent of the chips were Lance's. "Also, I put your wallet in the desk. So you wouldn't lose it."

"Thanks," replied Matt. "I thought I lost my wallet already, but you just moved it, which is definitely better,"

"No problem," said Lance, before he took another handful of chips.

For just a moment, a strange peaceful moment inside a run-down room inside a run-down bar inside a run-down town, Lance forgot where he was. He wasn't in Redpine, unsuccessfully repressing memories of knife fights and black eyes, but just in a moment. His geographical location, for this incredibly small amount of time, simply didn't matter. The faces that haunted his memories were only faces, instead of real people standing there in the shadows. 

The noose hanging on the tree, swinging in the wind, had fled his mind. The cold, lost feeling that had settled on Lance's shoulders for the longest time was beginning to slowly, slowly, slowly...unravel. Already, a few threads of cold metal and anger lay lost and forgotten on the floorboards.

It was certainly helped along by how Matt seemed to be incredibly, well, warm. Around him, ice melted faster, or maybe it was just Lance's mind being all poetic. But without the ice thing, Lance only had one point of evidence to how Matt was a warm person: Matt made him feel warm instead of cold. Matt made him feel whole when he was broken, just by sitting next to him eating a bag of chips.

Glancing down at the friendly girl on his chest, printed on the black cotton, he saw her wide smile again - along with her short skirt, oversized bust, and all her other features. Lance smiled back at the inanimate character, now feeling the exact opposite of hatred towards the shirt.

"So you do like my shirt, complainer," Matt remarked, before taking back the bag of chips which Lance had taken into his own lap. "Didn't know you were a weeb or anything, but whatever," Matt mused, his blond locks swinging as he readjusted his position sitting on the edge of the bed.

"I can deal with it," said Lance, the smile fading into a slight one, but nevertheless present. "And I'm not a weeaboo, because this is your shirt, if you haven't forgotten that yet."

"You can't prove it," Matt muttered, before taking an overdramatic sip of a store-brand orange soda. 


End file.
